El País is Spain's most widely circulated and most influential newspaper and is respected worldwide. It was first published on May 4, 1976, just as Spain was beginning the transition to democracy. The paper's vigorous defense of civil liberties and its support for political and social change, quickly made it an icon of modern Spain.

El País was a pioneer in the adoption of journalistic tools such as the Style Book, the readers' editor, and the Editorial Code, approved in 1980, which governs the professional relations between editorial staff, management and the company.

El País reconfirmed its position as market leader over the course of 2007 with a new record of 435,083 copies daily and 749,388 on Sundays according to figures from the auditing bureau OJD in December of that year. Figures from the first quarter of 2008 reveal an excellent start to the year with average daily distribution figures of 465,457, capping 11 consecutive months of climbing circulation. What's more, according to the audit Estudio General de Medios (EGM) from April, 2008, El País hit its highest figure ever: 2,336,000 readers.

On the world stage, meanwhile, the newspaper has agreements with The New York Times and Le Monde, in which PRISA is a stakeholder. In conjunction with The New York Times, El País publishes a Spanish-language supplement containing articles and reports from the US paper. The Internacional Herald Tribune, meanwhile, includes an English-language version of El País alongside the edition it sells in Spain.